Throughout the operations of the War of the Spanish Succession in the Low Countries and Germany, senior commanders such as John Churchill, duke of Marlborough, were aided, abetted and, on occasion, disrupted by a number of general and staff officers. These officers provided the mechanism by which supra-regimental command, military direction and management was effected. While these individuals possessed military dignity according to their rank and station, their real authority in the army was in no small part drawn from the powers and duties delegated to them by the commander-inchief, or assumed upon their own initiative; clear chains of command did not exist. Such officers functioned not only as vital elements in their own army, but within the broader context of the confederate warfare as a whole, in an army composed of English (later British), Dutch, Imperial, Danish and auxiliary German contingents. They came from diverse backgrounds and could possess constrasting political affiliations, aspirations and notions of duty. Their careers were governed as much by patronage and preference as any personal merit. A burgeoning sense of military duty was complicated by personal prejudice and the boundary between public and private endeavour was indistinct. Some officers gained wealth and financial security; others were ruined by the peculations of others.